gryffindorseeker's imagination journal.

dear log,

it is Day 11 of National Novel Writing Month (i.e. NaNoWriMo) and much to everyone's surprise, i have not quit yet. this is my first attempt EVER at an original piece of fiction and it's going almost well. in fact, the thing i like the least about my novel is its title (The Wicked Witch of West Hollywood) which i am thinking of replacing with something like Seurat's Monkey (which makes sense if you read the narrative, i promise). my NaNo page is here, if you want to friend me or laugh at my pitiful word count.

i am so sorry that i am so behind with answering reviews, i really am. please don't be offended if it takes me several weeks to respond to your review(s), but NaNo + school are both absolutely killing me right now. i think i have a decent track record of responding to reviews overall, so please bear with me during this masochistic month of november.

hmm, i don't have any fun stories to share, since NaNo sort of dominates your life by necessity. everyone seemed to like the story about my english teacher from a few posts ago, so i'll make a list of the many life lessons he has taught us. (we haven't learned as much about literature, sadly - he spent the first HOUR of yesterday's class on various tangents. they were entertaining, but the class is only an HOUR AND TWENTY MINUTES long.)

13 life lessons i've learned in english class this semester:

1. your life is meaningless. there is no higher power, there is no afterlife, and karl marx was right when he said that "religion is the opium of the masses." (this went over REALLY well considering that 95% of my class is RELIGIOUS.)
2. all white people should feel guilty for the genocide of native americans and the rape of their culture. (this also went over well considering that 100% of my class is WHITE, including our TEACHER.)
3. never follow the directions for daily contact lenses - don't throw them out and wear them until they start to hurt or get sucked behind your eyeball. (you'll save a fortune!)
4. watch out for your australian buddy from graduate school - he is probably secretly dating your little sister and will probably marry her one day. (this was actually a cute story.)
5. suburbia is just an outlet for men to prove their masculinity, by having the greenest, most well-maintained lawn in the neighborhood. men are always trying to prove their masculinity.
   
6. a subaru outback wagon is not effeminate. not compared to a minivan.
7. bono and aragorn are the two ideals all men should aspire to.
8. you can never read ernest j. gaines's "a lesson before dying" too many times or feel too guilty for racism/segregation/slavery, if you are a white person.
9. if you want to make a woman fall in love with you, leave shakespearean sonnets in her mailbox. if this doesn't work, she is obviously a robot. (only 10% of our class is male, but i suppose that statistically, some of the girls are gay.)
10. if you want to make a woman think you're perverted, leave a copy of john donne's "the flea" in her mailbox. (personally, i prefer donne to shakespeare, but maybe i'm a perverted robot.)
11. there are three different kinds of moles, and all are bad.
12. don't buy your children toys. they will pick a stick they found in the woods over a store-bought toy every time.
13. the most effective way to kill the animal variety of mole is not by poison or guillotine, but by beating it with a stick.

and this guy isn't even the weirdest teacher i've ever had - far from it. see why i always write weird characters? either i'm surrounded by weird people, or just notice the weirdness more than other people do...